302 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



keep pets when every wild free hawk that passed over 

 head in the air was mine ? I joyed in his swift, careless 

 flight, in the throw of his pinions, in his rush over the 

 elms and miles of woodland ; it was happiness to see his 

 unchecked life. What more beautiful than the sweep 

 and curve of his going through the azure sky ? These 

 were my pets, and all the grass. Under the wind it 

 seemed to dry and become grey, and the starlings running 

 to and fro on the surface that did not sink now stood high 

 above it and were larger. The dust that drifted along 

 blessed it, and it grew. Day by day a change ; always 

 a note to make. The moss drying on the tree-trunks, 

 dog's-mercury stirring under the ash-poles, bird's-claw 

 buds of beech lengthening : books upon books to be 

 filled with these things. I cannot think how they manage 

 without me. 



' To-day through the window-pane I see a lark high 

 up against the grey cloud, and hear his song. I cannot 

 walk about and arrange with the birds and gorse-bloom ; 

 how does he know it is the time for him to sing ? With- 

 out my book and pencil and observing eye, how does he 

 understand that the hour has come ? To sing high in 

 the air, to chase his mate over the low stone waU of the 

 ploughed field, to battle with his high-crested rival, to 

 balance himself on his trembling wings, outspread a few 

 yards above the earth, and utter that sweet little loving 

 kiss, as it were, of song — oh, happy, happy days ! So 

 beautiful to watch, as if he were my own, and I felt it 

 all ! It is years since I went out amongst them in the 

 old fields, and saw them in the green corn ; they must be 

 dead, dear little things, by now. Without me to tell 

 him, how does this lark to-day that I hear through the 

 window know it is his hour ?'* 



What utterly abandoned sincerity is here ! Writing 

 seldom comes so near to a sob without causing disgust. 

 Seldom, save in Shelley, is the veil between the poet and 

 the reader living after him so transparent. It is the 



• * Hours of Spring,' Field and Hedgerow. 



